


To Sing Songs With

by castaliareed



Series: Songs of the Starklings [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Baby Starks - Freeform, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Jon and Sansa as kids, JonSa implied, Lemon Cakes, Prophetic Dreams, Sansa is sad, Starklings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 17:33:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11235861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/castaliareed/pseuds/castaliareed
Summary: Jon and Ned try to make Sansa feel better.





	To Sing Songs With

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to create this a gift/thank you to blackcorazon on tumblr who made a lovely gif for The Huddle recently.
> 
> This is also a Father's Day Special!

The little girl with auburn braids watched her Lord Father, brothers, and sister walked back to the keep. Staying planted at the root of the large weirwood tree with a carved face that oozed red sap, she didn't want them to see her cry.

"Sansa, aren't you going back to the keep?" he asked. She whipped her head around to see her half-brother Jon Snow sitting on a tree root opposite her. The little girl had not realized he too had stayed behind at the heart tree in the center of the Godswood.

"I wanted to pray a bit," she said looking down at her clasped hands in the lap of her light blue summer gown. _That sounds like the right thing to say._ She didn't really want to pray. She just didn't want to go back to the Great Keep.

"You don't want to see the new baby?" he asked. They had come to the Godswood to give thanks for their new brother, Rickon. To thank the Gods that both mother and child had lived. 

"Don't you?" she answered back. She saw a sad look come over his face. _That was the wrong thing to say. Her lady mother would not want him to come._ She felt sorry for her words.

"I don't think..." he started to say before changing his mind. "Maybe later."

She picked at a leaf while he poked a stick into the ground. Tears welled up in her eyes despite her best efforts to will them back down.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing," she said hiding her face while she wiped her eyes. He didn't say anything, instead moved to sit closer to her. She picked up a red weirwood leaf pulling it apart at the veins until it was nothing but little pieces. Jon waited awkwardly for her to speak. 

"I wanted a sister!" she blurted out. 

"But you...you have a sister," he said a bit confused. 

"It's not..." she fumbled for the words. "Arya doesn't like me." Jon regarded her with narrowed gray eyes. His dark wavy hair falling messy around his face. He couldn't even tell her she was mistaken. She was not. Arya preferred her brothers to Sansa. 

Sansa felt the tears on her cheeks. "Maybe, I thought I could have a sister like me. To sing songs with."

"You can sing songs with Arya?" he suggested. She gave him a cold look. "Ok," he laughed a bit, "maybe not."

"She thinks songs are stupid. Everyone thinks they are stupid," she said. Jon was silent and kept looking down. "You all play swords together. I can't do that."

"You have...Jeyne...and Beth..." he said trying to be helpful reminding her of her two closest friends. 

"It's not the same," tears coming again to her eyes. "They aren't sisters." Jon had moved closer to her now. And placed an arm around her shoulders. She wanted to tell him, how sometimes she wished they would let her train with them, or shoot arrows. She wanted to try except she was afraid she wouldn't be good enough. She was afraid they would laugh at her. And most of all she was afraid it wasn't proper. And she wanted to tell him that she liked her songs and her needlepoint and poetry and even drawing even if everyone else thought those things were stupid. She still liked them. She was good at those things. 

Sansa wanted to brush Arya's hair like her mother brushed her hair. Jon wouldn't let anyone touch his hair. Nor would Arya. He wouldn't understand how nice it felt to have someone brush your hair. 

They sat there for a long time, quiet underneath the tree. Sansa felt the carved face of the weirwood staring at them. She wondered if some ancient god was seeing their futures. The thought should scare her. It didn't. She rested her head on Jon's shoulder and when her tears dried she wondered what the weirwood could tell her about her future. 

A voice called out from the distance. It was Arya looking for Jon. He turned to Sansa. Lifting her head, "I'm ok," she said.

Jon stood and started to run off back to the keep. Stopping for a moment, he turned around to say "I like your songs, Sansa." She stared back at him her mouth forming a shy smile.

"Thank you," she whispered. She wanted to ask him why he had stayed behind when everyone went back to the keep but it was too late. He was gone.  _Maybe he wanted another sister, too._ Somehow she doubted that was the case. 

Sansa sat underneath the heart tree for a while longer envisioning the sister she might like to have. Her Lady Mother could have more babies. This reminded Sansa of the groans she had heard coming from her mother's chambers as she birthed. It had sounded so very painful. Just three moons earlier a servant girl had died in childbed. 

The thought made Sansa feel guilty. She was supposed to love Arya and the new baby.  She could not image the world without her Lady Mother. Standing, she resolved to try and love her sister and the new baby as best she could. 

She made her way back to her bed chamber in the Keep, avoiding her family. They would be serving dinner, now. Even though she was hungry, she did not want her brothers and Arya's company tonight.

Slipping out of her dress and into a cotton shift, she climbed into her bed with one of the storybooks. It had beautiful pictures of Aemon the Dragonknight and Queen Naerys. She thought of the good Queen who did not have any sisters. _She loved her brother though._ Sansa thought it very tragic and beautiful. The hours fell away as she dreamed of a world with dragons and knights, heroes and maidens. 

There was a knock at her door. Surprised that someone would be coming to her room at such an hour. Opening the door only an inch, peering out to see Jon about to turn around and walk away.

"Oh," he said. "I was just leaving this for you." He pointed to a small square wrapped in cheesecloth left next to her door. Picking it up she unwrapped the gift to find a lemon cake. 

"My favorite," she said. 

"You didn't come to dinner and I...I thought you might be hungry," he said staring at the floor while he talked to her. 

"Thank you, Jon," she said. They turned to hear sounds coming from down the hallway. Jon ran off before she could offer to share the cake with him.

Sansa took the cake with her to bed, where she greedily ate it. She thought it sweet of him to think of her. Soon she drifted to sleep with crumbs of cake on her lips.

Again there was a knock at the door. Sansa got up to see who was there. The room was very dark, all the candles were out. She peered into the dark hallway but all she saw was a shadowy figure walking down the corridor. _Father,_ she thought wondering why he was wearing his fur trimmed cloak inside the castle in summer. She called out but he did not turn around. 

Barefoot she began to run down the hall after him. Everything was dark and could. She could hear voices behind the closed doors. One sounded like children arguing, another a man and woman saying they loved each other in low voices, another was Old Nan telling a scary story, and on the voices went. She continued to follow the figure who kept turning corners and stayed just out of reach. _Father,_ she called out again. Still, he did not turn. 

She passed one door and she heard the cries of a woman in childbirth worse than her mother's cries. A voice inside said, _Sansa._ When she went to open the door the room was empty. Becoming scared she ran down the hallway, the man was nowhere to be scene. She tried to find her way back to her own room and could not. _But this is Winterfell, This is my home._  She started to cry realizing she was lost. Running until she was outside in the yard, her feet cold from the summer snow, she stopped. Turning she saw the man walk toward the crypts. Why was father going to the crypts? She ran to catch him. 

Following him down into the crypts, she called out one last time, _Father_ she said. The figure turned and looked at her confused.

"Sansa, why are you calling me that?" he said. Words would not come out of her mouth. It was Jon, she thought. A much much older Jon with hair on his face. He sighed. "Here, I was looking for you." He gave her a small package, a lemon cake. When she unwrapped it, the cake crumbled in her hands. She looked up at Jon. He started to fade away. _Wait_ , she tried to say. She was scared at night in the crypts alone. 

Sansa woke from her nightmare with a start. To scared to fall back asleep, she crawled out of bed. She could not go to her Lady Mother's room with the new baby. She wondered the hallway until she found herself in front of her Lord Father's solar. Candlelight still glowed from the cracked door. She knocked then peaked her head in. 

"Yes," a tired voice said.

"Papa," she called out. "I'm scared." Her father in his tunic and breeches but no cloak was standing near an open window. 

"Come little one," he said sitting in an armchair so she could climb into his lap. "Did you have a bad dream?" She shook her head, yes. He bid her to tell him the dream. At first, she was scared to describe what she had seen. Eventually, the words came out, the empty castle with voices, the man who looked like her father but when she caught up to him was a younger man with a short beard and dark gray eyes. She didn't tell him the man was Jon. How it all disappeared leaving her alone in the crypts. How she was so scared when she was alone in the castle. Her father quietly listened concern clouding his face.

"It was just a dream, Sansa," he said as he wiped the tears from her eyes. She laid her head on his chest and started to quietly hum a song. 

"What song is that?" he asked her. 

"Aemon the Dragonknight and Queen Naerys," she whispered. " The Dragonknight wouldn't ever let Naerys get scared, would he, Papa?" Sansa felt her Lord Father squeeze her tighter.

Turning his head to the back of the room, "The Dragonknight would always protect Naerys," he assured her. It was then she noticed someone else with them. Leaning against the wall, Jon was gazing at her. He had been there the whole time, visiting with Father before she arrived.  Sansa wondered if Jon had had a bad dream and wanted to talk to their Father about it, too. 

Returning to her song, she sang a little louder and a little clearer so Jon could hear. She saw him smile before she fell asleep in her father's arms. 

 

 

 


End file.
